Côme Jalibert

The recent rise of VR as an immersive storytelling medium creates the need for adequate tools for content creators. I want VR to be a strong and lasting medium, not a trendy gimmick, and the only way for this to happen is the quality of our 360 productions.

To me, 360 content has to be enjoyed with a VR headset and headphones. With these devices, the user can live an immersive stereoscopic and binaural experience, which is the backbone of VR. The challenge for creators is then to produce quality content with a one pass 360 stereoscopic footage and ambisonics audio at affordable costs!

To reach such a goal, we built a team with the stereographer Josephine Derobe, the creative technologist Sergio Ochoa, the mechanical engineer Jean Chesneau and myself as a sound engineer. Together, we designed and built a VR rig that meets all our creative, technical and financial expectations.

I wanted to use the AMBEO VR Mic in our second prototype; after testing another microphone in our first prototype. The AMBEO VR Mic was much easier to physically integrate in the rig because of the smaller footprint of the tetrahedral capsules ensemble. The built-in windshield is a big plus size-wise! With the AMBEO VR Mic, I’ve been able to position the microphone right at the core of the 14 optics cluster of our rig. Shooting stereoscopic 360 video requires plenty of lenses that have to be very close to each other! And at the same time, if the microphone is too far away from the nodal point of the cameras, the whole soundscape feels wrong. So I am very pleased that the AMBEO VR Mic enables me to capture a soundstage truly coincident to the 360 video!

I had the opportunity to test our second prototype and the AMBEO VR Mic with a symphony orchestra. We experimented several rig positions on stage surrounded by the musicians as well as one right in front of the conductor with the musicians spanning around at 180°. For each position, I was amazed by the very detailed quality of the sound captured by the AMBEO VR Mic and its handling of the high SPL produced by the orchestra. For my specific setup, I found the length of the cable could have been longer to make an easier connection to my recorder, situated on the floor below my rig. Short additional cables are needed in this case with the inconvenience of having the bulk of 4 extra XLR plugs in the way. On the other hand, this length is perfect for those situations where the recorder has to be away from the rig, because the 4 XLR connectors can be hidden very close to the rig.

In post production, I was very pleased by the spatialization of the audio captured by the AMBEO VR Mic, I literally felt like I was on stage next to the musicians! A few spot mics were mixed in as well in order to give the soundstage an even firmer anchor. Ultimately, even the slightest head movement leads to a subtle but extremely convincing audio feedback for the user: the immersion is total!